, 1887-08-11
THE LAWS OF HEREDlTY.
STUDIES DRAWN FROM A coLLEc-
TON OF FAMILY RECORDS.

Little Difference the Sexes in
the Frequency of Good and Bad Tenn
per-Temper as Hereditary ms Any
Other Quality.
Mr.. Francis Cation, whose studies Of
the laws Of heredity drawn from his Ia
borious collection Of family records must
be well remembered, has Just printed in
The Fortnightly Review the results of his
Investigation of the facts concerning what
is Familiarity called temper, " and partic-
ularly the proportions of good and bad
tempered persons in English domestic life
and the heredity of temper We can
not follow all the variations of Mr.. Gal
toms research, or reproduce his ingenious
calculations, but only note a few results.
Perhaps it may be thought surprising that
the proportion Of good tempered and bad
tempered persons is almost exactly equal.
The first set of data which Mr.. Cation
tried gave the proportion Of the good to
the bad tempered as 4S to 90, the second
set rs AZ to 53. There Is little difference
between the two sexes in the frequency of
good and bad temper, but that little is in
favor of the women, since about 45 men
are recorded as good tempered for every SO
who are bad, and conversely 55 women as
good tempered for 45 who are bad.
Of 1868 children, 321 were good tenn
pered and 342 were bad, with 705 wanting
special characteristics Of temper. The
good and the bad tempered were thus
equal again, the neutral or medium class
being as numerous as the other two COM
bined, results which Mr.. Cation says bear
emphatic & stimony to the correct judg-
ments of his compilers. AS to the au-
thority of these compilers or reporters,
and the capacity OF any observers to deal
with the subject, he admits that ''accu-
rate discernment and designation of char
acter is almost beyond the reach of any
one, but, on the other hand, n rough
knowledge n description of its promi-
nent features is easily practicable;'' and
he rightly thinks that there can be little
doubt of the value of Testimony Of n
member Of n family who has seen and OBJ
served n person in his unguarded moments
and under very varied circumstances for
many years.
OF TEMPER
Mr.. Gallon is clear upon the important
question of the heredity Of temper; he
says it is 'as hereditary MS any other
quality"
81 have forty-three cases where both
parents are recorded as good tempered
n twenty-five where they were both bad
tempered. Ont of the children of the
former 30 per cent were good tempered
n 10 per cent. bad; out of the latter 4
per cent. were good INT 90 per cent. bad
tempered. This is emphatic testimony to
the heredity of temper"
And he attempted, with still moro sue
cess, to answer the converse question: Do
good tempered families of brothers and
sisters have, OF the whole, good tempered
ancestors, and bad tempered families bad
tempered ones2 a good tempered family
he defines for the purpose as one in which
at least two members were good tempered
and none were bad, and n bad tempered
family as one in which at least two men,
bers were bad tempered, whether or not
any cases of good temper were SAT- to be
associated with them, and, as regards an
%cestors, he takes the two parents and the
uncles and aunts on both side as the most
trustworthy group. On this Mr.. Cation
says;
have forty-siX good tempered families,
with an aggregate of 1888 parents, uncles
and aunts; and seventy-one bad tempered
families, with 633 parents, uncles and
hunts. In the former group 20 per cent.
were good tempered and 10 bad; in the
latter group 10 were good tempered and
20 were bad, the remainder being neutral.
More briefly we say that when the family
is good tempered rs above defined the
number of good tempered parents, uncles
and aunts exceeds hat of the bad tenn
pered in the proportion Of three to two,
and that when the family is a tempered
the proportions are exactly reversed. -
New York Post.